Does Deep Earth Host Untapped Fuel?

Jan. 19, 2005  Thomas Gold was not your typical radical. Far from
being a mad scientist, he was a brilliant professor of astronomy at
Cornell University, but he succeeded in driving many others mad with
theories that flew in the face of conventional wisdom.

His most controversial idea was among his last, and geologists and
petroleum experts around the world still rage against Gold for
suggesting they were dead wrong in their understanding of how oil and
gas are formed in the Earth's crust.

Now, a couple of decades after Gold first suggested that hydrocarbons
are formed deep underground by geological processes and not just
below the surface by biological decay, there is increasing evidence
that he may have been on to something.